Come to Die
by slightlysmall
Summary: "They say you die twice: one time when you stop breathing, and the second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time." That's one thing she's sure of as she goes to speak at her husband's funeral.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I don't own anything you recognize. Completed for the Themes and Prompts Competition, with the theme Immortality and the prompts: mirror, reason, sensitive, nonsense, and graceful. Some of them I relied on more than others... The title comes from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 trailer (unless it was in the movie itself), when Voldemort says "Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, come to die." This will be a two-shot, with an epilogue of sorts that I'll get posted soon.**

The mirror in front of her was ornate, an antique that had probably been residing in the church for at least five hundred years. She peered at the face in front of her, almost unrecognizable. Absentmindedly, she reached up to trace the fine lines around her mouth, the wrinkles surrounding her eyes, hair faded to gray. Three children gave her a plump figure, years on the planet sloped her back, once-taut skin drooped closer to the earth. It was her mother staring back at her, she realized, and saddened at the thought. Fifty years without her and she was still sensitive to the image; time could never fully erase the pain of losing a mother. Gravity pulled on her, breathing was becoming difficult, and she knew she would soon be beside her husband again- in the ground where they were about to bury him.

She was dressed in simple black robes, appropriate for her husband's funeral, but she found it hard to cry. He was 120 years old when he fell asleep beside her for the last time four nights ago, and when she looked over at his lifeless body at dawn, she simply nodded sadly. How could she shed a tear when he'd lived more than a hundred years longer than he expected to? She remembered it as if the past century were just a flash of lightning with the thunder still echoing in her ears. The passionate teenager, the certainty she'd never see him again, never take his name in the way she'd always wanted but never quite expected, the fury in her dueling that night when he was supposed to be dead, dead, dead. Where was that fury now?

A century of marriage, a whole hundred years of waking up to the same wonderful face, never noticing as black hair turned white, as wrinkles began to creep over his skin. Together, they watched three children grow up to raise children and grandchildren of their own. As newlyweds, they had stayed up to watch the Muggle fireworks as 1999 became 2000, and eight months ago, they sat in chairs just outside London, barely managing to stay awake, to watch 2099 become 2100. She couldn't be furious now; how can you be furious at the death of someone who really _lived_? He had certainly greeted Death as an old friend.

Staring once again at her reflection, she took a deep breath and prepared herself to speak. As she turned to the door of the church, her great-great-granddaughter came inside, tall and thin, vibrant red hair and green eyes; except for the eyes, she felt like she was looking into a Pensieve.

"Gran, are you sure you can do this? It's not too much?"

"Nonsense, dear. Of course I can. How many people are out there?'

"Thousands."

"I thought there might be." She took the arm of the younger woman and hobbled outside. The roar of the crowd outside as she came into view surprised her; it was like she was a Quidditch champion again, making her way onto the pitch. There were hundreds of redheads, naturally. Nearly fifty were her direct descendants, not to mention the children, grandchildren, great- and great-great-grandchildren of her siblings. "I don't even think Dumbledore had a crowd like this at his funeral."

"There was a war going on, wasn't there? And his funeral was rushed? That's what Professor Binns said in History of Magic."

"Yes, love, Professor Binns is right. It's still strange to me, though, that things I saw and felt, lived and feared, are things they teach you in History of Magic these days."

They reached the stage, and she gave her great-great-granddaughter a kiss on the cheek before climbing the steps herself. If she hadn't been the one to pick this location, to buy the plot, to suggest holding the service outdoors, she wouldn't have been able to tell that they were already in a graveyard. Person after person crowded in, filling the small cemetery, overflowing into the town square next door, pushed back onto manicured front lawns of houses that had the misfortune of overlooking the area. More than 150 years past due, television had slowly began to permeate the wizarding culture, and cameras faced the stage where she now stood, her wand prepared to project her voice over the crowd.

Slowly, they began to notice her presence on the stage and silence spread among the people like a disease, as they turned to hush children who pointed excitedly towards her.

She cleared her throat and began to speak. "Unlike many of you, I grew up in a time when the story of the Boy Who Lived was just a rumor, a modern fairy tale that explained why we no longer feared the one we then called He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. When I first met this boy, he was just a celebrity to me, a flesh-and-bone replica of the child I grew up hearing stories about. I didn't notice his insecurity, that he had no idea what it meant to be a wizard, to be famous to a group of people he hadn't known existed. I didn't know _him_, his loyalty, his kindness, what it was that made him so attractive to me, not yet at least, and it would be years before I figured it out. When I was just eleven years old, I was possessed by Voldemort, who pulled me into his secrets by way of my own infatuation with the Boy Who Lived in the same tower of Hogwarts as I did. Together, Tom Riddle and I obsessed over him- and it nearly led to my death, except that the Boy Who Barely Knew Me saved me.

"You are all taught now about the Horcrux quest he took at seventeen, how together with my brother and sister-in-law, he left school to find the only way to kill Voldemort. But it was different for me, not a story learned in history class or passed down through relatives, but something I lived through. We had just started dating when he left, and when I asked him to promise he'd come back to me alive, he remained silent.

"The school year was anguish, and not just because he was gone. My friends and I were tortured nearly to death for standing up for the rights of Muggle-borns, for proclaiming our loyalty to Dumbledore. A first-year student died that spring. Luna Lovegood was imprisoned for her father's open loyalty, Augusta Longbottom was attacked for the tenacity of her grandson. I was sent to a safe house before the year ended so that I wouldn't be next. The names that you memorize rote for exams are people to me, people I loved and cared for and worried about. They are people who mattered to Harry Potter.

"When word had it that Harry Potter was back at Hogwarts, that there would be a battle, I was there fighting, an obstinate 16-year-old who wouldn't take my mother's cautious 'No' for an answer. And four days ago wasn't the first time I saw Harry's lifeless body in front of me, that I prepared to grieve his death. Still months before his eighteenth birthday, I watched him be carried out of the forest, lifeless, a triumphant look on Voldemort's inhuman face. I couldn't have known then, as shock reverberated throughout the castle like something tangible, that he would have more than a century of life left in him, that he would spend most of those years at my side as my husband.

"You might know from history class or family legend that at the time of the Battle, Harry was the rightful owner of all three Deathly Hallows, which made him, legend says, master of death. He lost one and destroyed another that night, and seemed to turn down the opportunity to become immortal with it. Sure enough, though far later than he ever expected to live, Harry Potter now lies in the coffin in front of me. But I've heard it said that you die twice: one time when you stop breathing, and the second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time.

"If that is true, and I believe it is, Harry has achieved immortality despite himself. Right here in the town square of Godric's Hollow, there's a statue erected in his honor, his name on the plaque that stands outside his childhood home. His name is in our history books, and in the hearts of those of us who had the chance to know him personally. My husband lies here in a coffin, an old man, frail, and no longer breathing. But to me, to his family, to the wizarding community around the world, he will always be the Boy Who Lived."

Her speech was met with thunderous applause, which she left unacknowledged. Instead, she grabbed the single red rose she had kept with her, hobbled to the coffin of her husband, knelt down beside him. Looking at his face, she forgot the crowds, the cameras, and leaned down to kiss his lifeless lips, whispered in his unhearing ears. "Harry, you've always been my reason for living, for continuing on. I knew it was time for you to go, but four days without you was far too long. I needed to speak here, remind everyone that though you were an old man destined to be remembered as a young boy, you were human; you felt and feared and hoped and you loved. I may be forgotten in future generations, but I can't imagine the day when someone will say your name for the last time, and in that you will never die."

Ginevra Molly Potter lay down gracefully, despite her age, beside the coffin, even as Lily's granddaughter rose to speak, and there beside her husband, she smiled and took her last breath.


	2. Epilogue

Rowena Potter sat in the Great Hall, excitement palpable in the murmurs of the students around her. It was May 2nd, and in honor of the thousandth anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts, Professor Malfoy, the headmaster, was having them watch the ancient video from Harry Potter's funeral. Her best friend Rhys Finnegan sat beside her, chattering endlessly as usual.

"It's strange, isn't it, to think that Harry Potter went to school here. I tried to ask Professor Binns about him once, but he said he doesn't teach to get to know students. You think he'd care more, now that he's teaching us things like the Second Wizarding War, but oh well. Nearly Headless Nick won't shut up about his 500th Death Day party, if you ask him about Harry. He seems to know most about him of anyone here. He was Gryffindor, just like us. I wonder which dorm he slept in, which room. Maybe I sleep in the same bed as Harry used to!"

Rowena rolled her eyes. "I'm pretty sure they've changed the beds in the last thousand years. Honestly, Rhys. How can you believe half the things you read about him anyway? They say he fought a three-headed dog when he was only twelve- the same age as we are! Is that something you buy?"

He averted his eyes. "Well, no, I suppose not. But some of it has to be true, or we wouldn't have such wonderful stories today. I mean, we know he defeated that Voldemort guy when he was only seventeen, but a lot of stories say that he fought face-to-face with him every year. That's gotta be exaggeration."

"I definitely agree with you there," she said. She hated to admit it, especially since there was no real way of knowing how much pictures had been doctored, or if they were just made to look a thousand years old or something, but she liked to think she looked something like Harry with her disheveled black hair and green eyes. They shared a last name, after all, and it was strange to have black hair when most wizards were redheads, but nonetheless, the likelihood was just too small.

With a quick flick of the wrist, Professor Malfoy dimmed the candlelight and directed the students' attention to the wall where the ancient film was projecting. Nine hundred years hadn't been kind to the tape, and the color seemed faded, the sound imperfect. Rowena had spent the whole week playing down this event as just another day in history class, no better than if Professor Binns were the one speaking. But as she watched the old woman walk onto the stage in the video, the quality hardly even mattered. Rowena felt like she was there.

By the end of Ginny's speech, Rowena's face was streaked with tears. She'd always wondered what it would be like to grow up during those Dark Times, and here was Ginny Potter, practically in the room with her, talking about the glimmer of hope that Harry really had lived, how she fell in love with him. Rowena was well-read for twelve, but she found herself aghast at how much she'd forgotten. Even a thousand years ago, people were still people- ones who fell in love, and hoped, and fought. Here in this room, a thousand years ago today, a boy the same age as Rowena's brother Arthur stood up to a wizard for the last time. She supposed that even then, Harry Potter was a legend of sorts. But it wasn't the same after sixteen years as it was after a thousand, and as Ginny gave a first-hand account of the Battle of Hogwarts, Rowena thought about the names and facts that she _had_, in all honesty, just memorized rote for tests. Harry Potter didn't kill Voldemort on purpose; he attempted to disarm him and Voldemort's own Killing Curse rebounded. It never frightened her, because everyone knew the ending. "Harry Potter and the Forbidden Forest" was the last chapter in _The Tale of Beedle the Bard_, after all. But he hadn't known the ending at the time- faced with the most powerful wizard alive whose only goal was to kill him, Harry still refused to murder. Why weren't people brave like that anymore?

On the screen, Ginny was saying, "But to me, to his family, to the wizarding community around the world, he will always be the Boy Who Lived." The applause on the screen was hidden beneath the applause from in the Great Hall, nine hundred years later. Rowena joined the others on their feet, screaming for the best history lesson they ever had.

Walking back to the Gryffindor Tower, Rowena took her time, looking at all the portraits lining the hallway. On the fifth floor, she finally found the one she was looking for. A redheaded witch was zooming around a Quidditch pitch, not paying the Hogwarts halls any attention.

"Ginny! Do you have a minute?"

The portrait set down her broom and walked closer to the frame, until it was just her head and shoulders. She looked little like the bent old woman Rowena had just seen in the video. In fact, she seemed a lot more like Genevieve Scamander than anyone else.

"Oh, hello there. Not many people take the chance to visit my portrait. Do I know you?"

"Not really. I haven't been by here before. I'm Rowena Potter."

"I should've known. You look so much like Harry. But I'd say you have James's lips."

"James? Who's that?"

A smile crept over the lips of the portrait. "James Sirius Potter is my son."

"Thanks, Ginny. I just wanted to be sure."

Alone in the washroom in Gryffindor Tower, Rowena looked into the mirror, and said to her reflection, "I, Rowena Luna Potter, am a descendant of the famous Harry Potter."

**A/N: I don't own anything you recognize. By this point, our English is probably unrecognizable to the students, but I didn't want to make an attempt at it. As to my head canon: Rowena is right about her ancestry. Professor Malfoy is the descendant of Rose and Scorpius. Rhys is related to Seamus. Genevieve Scamander is related both to the Weasleys and Luna and Rolf. **


End file.
